The present invention relates to a data base system including memorandum information and a method for managing the memorandum information, and more particularly to a data base management system and a method for managing memorandum information in which a user of the data base system manages personal information (referred to as memorandum information) relating to data of the data base on a work station, in on-line information processing system comprising a host computer including the data base and work stations coupled to the host computer.
Information handled in an enterprise may be classified into organization information and personal information.
Organization information is official information in an organization and shared by the organization members. In order to store, retrieve and update large amounts of organization information, various types of data base management systems are developed.
Personal information is not official information in an organization. It is collected and modified by each organization member to smoothly process his assigned jobs. The personal information is normally not opened for use by others but it may be handed to others in the form of memorandum or document with his permission.
A conventional data base management system (DBMS) is for the organization information in which a data structure (expression and format of data) has been defined before a data is inputted. The data can be readily stored, retrieved and updated.
On the other hand, the personal information has no fixed data structure and, is in many cases, image information such as memorandums and charts.
Such personal information in memorandum form (memorandum information) is written on memo papers by the the person in charge, and they are classified by fields. In order for these memorandums to be utilized later, they must be well classified and rearranged. It is troublesome work and valuable information may be dispersed or a promise to a customer may not be kept. As a result, the person in charge may lose his/her credit.
The memorandum information of non-fixed (non-routine) data structure may be stored on an optical disk in a compact manner. In order to allow exact retrieval of desired information, it is necessary to assign a search key to each memorandum. This does not make a significant difference from the paper memorandums from the standpoint of classification and rearrangement.